1. Field
The present disclosure relates to an obstacle detecting unit using a lens that is used for a mobile robot. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a lens assembly that may be used for an obstacle detecting unit which can detect all of obstacles which are located in a front area, an upper side, and a lower side in front of a mobile robot by using a single image sensor, an obstacle detecting unit using the same, and a mobile robot having the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A mobile robot, such as a robot cleaner, is configured to move automatically while avoiding obstacles located in front of the mobile robot in order to be able to perform autonomous navigation and certain tasks.
For this, the mobile robot is provided with an obstacle detecting unit. Conventional robot cleaners are provided with a number of position sensitive detectors (PSD) that are a position detecting sensor and are disposed in the front and at the top of the mobile robot as the obstacle detecting sensor in order to avoid obstacles. However, this method has problems that the blind spot of the obstacle detection cannot be completely eliminated, and the material cost is increased because it uses a plurality of sensors.
For solving these problems, a robot cleaner has been developed to detect obstacles in front of the robot cleaner using an omni-directional camera system. However, because the conventional omni-directional camera system is configured to detect either obstacles in the front area and an upper side of the front area or obstacles in the front area and the lower side of the front area, there is a problem in that it cannot detect the upper and lower sides of the front area at the same time.
For solving this problem, the use of two omni-directional camera systems one of which can detect obstacles in the upper side of the front area and the other of which can detect obstacles in the lower side of the front area may be considered. However, because this configuration uses two camera systems, there is a problem in that the material cost is increased, and to increase the data processing capability of a controller is also required because the amount of data to be processed is increased.